


low light

by beanpod



Series: bingo fills 2020 [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Dog Tags, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26368348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanpod/pseuds/beanpod
Summary: Steve finds them in an empty Hydra bunker in Bocas del Toro, shoved under a pile of old files in a room that’s been collecting dust for almost 40 years, according to the log records. They’re in one of those letter-sized manila envelopes, dirty with grit and what he hopes is just rust.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: bingo fills 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1874800
Comments: 13
Kudos: 97
Collections: Stucky Bingo 2020





	low light

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaaaaaaaaaah this is my first time writing stevebucky pls be nice to me i am fragile, especially after that pic seb posted of bucky's dog tags, i've been a mess ever since so this happened
> 
> for the 'reunion' square at the stuckybingo2020 
> 
> titled after aquilo's song.

Steve finds them in an empty Hydra bunker in Bocas del Toro, shoved under a pile of old files in a room that’s been collecting dust for almost 40 years, according to the log records. They’re in one of those letter-sized manila envelopes, dirty with grit and what he hopes is just rust.

Natasha finds him in the archives room and says, “What is it why Hydra and trophies.”

Steve would scoff, but his throat’s too tight to let out any kind of noise.

He pockets Bucky’s dog tags and turns to fetch his shield. Natasha follows quietly, and it must be written all over his face, because not even Sam says a thing about it when they find him outside.

He’s still Sam, though. “Weather’s nice,” he says absently, the sun glinting off the rim of his glasses. “Hydra knows all the vacation spots, I swear.”

Steve quirks a smile because it’s actually true, the weather’s sunny and warm, clothes sticking to skin, and he can smell the sea salt. Last dregs of summer clinging to the air. “Let’s go,” he says instead, and heads for the quinjet ramp, Bucky’s tags a heavy weight on the breast pocket of his jacket.

-

Natasha goes back under a few weeks after Panama. She kisses Sam’s cheek and squeezes Steve’s hand and tells them she’ll keep an eye and ear out for any whispers. Steve thanks her, lets her walk out of the small apartment he and Sam are renting in DC, trying not to feel hollow.

“Are you okay, Steve?” Sam asks. The gentle tone of his voice makes something in Steve rattle loose.

“You know I’m not,” he says with a half-smile that feels a mile away from the real deal.

Sam sighs and reaches over to pat Steve’s shoulder warmly. “Look, Steve, I get it. He’s your guy, and you’re not gonna stop. But you are allowed to take breaks. When was the last time you rested for more than a couple hours?”

“2011, probably.” Steve huffs half a chuckle through his nose when Sam rolls his eyes. “I don’t need that much sleep, anyway, Sam.”

Sam’s lips flatten into a disapproving line. “Sleep’s not the same as rest. You do need both, Steve.”

“Fine,” Steve says, nodding with what he hopes translates as agreement and not chagrin. “Okay, Sam.”

Sam gives him the face that says _Okay, Steve, I’ll pretend I believe whatever’s coming out of your mouth_ , which is not too far from the look Bucky used to give him. It makes a pang of grief slash through Steve for all of two seconds; he smiles back—brittle, he’s sure—and steps back and away and locks himself in his room for the rest of the night.

-

He doesn’t sleep, not much. He can’t, it feels like giving up.

He sits on the bed and stares out at the open space of his room—it’s small, much smaller than the apartment Bucky nearly blew up. It fits a twin bed, a tiny bedside table, a desk, and a stool that Steve mostly uses to pile his dirty laundry on top of. There’s a staggering tower of files on top of the desk, scattered pictures from Nat’s recon, some he took from the last bunker they found.

And there’s Bucky’s dog tags.

Steve’s done his best to clean them up. They sit ominously on his bedside table. Sometimes Steve takes his own off and sets them side by side, when he’s feeling particularly more self-pitying than usual.

He doesn’t know what else to do with them.

He doesn’t know what else to do with himself.

-

The next Hydra facility they visit leaves a hairline fracture in Steve’s ribs, a concussion to the head, a fractured pinky, and a nasty bruise on Sam’s jaw.

What Steve remembers happening is this:

They burst in shield and guns first, all hell breaks loose, as it usually does when they lack Nat’s subtlety. Steve instructs Sam to take the basement while he takes the remaining main floor. So Sam tips his gun at him in a lazy salute and disappears down a flight of stairs and Steve goes further into the floor and that’s when he finds about twenty (or more, it’s all a blur) agents, most of the armed to the teeth.

“Looks like we crashed a party,” Steve says through the comms.

Sam snorts in his ear, “Remind me to take you out one of these days and show you what a real party is. _Jesus_.”

Steve’s mouth twists wryly into a smile, reminded of Nat suddenly, and gets to work.

It’s nasty. A while back, while he’d been introduced to the new century and while he’d been under Fury’s eye (and before Insight), he’d been told the goal was to contain, first. Now Steve goes for the kill because there’s nothing holding him back and the only thing he holds onto lately is a grudge, the ugly truth of what they put Bucky through rearing its head through violence in Steve’s fists.

A blast shakes the ground under his feet. Sam bursts through a gap on the floor, covered in debris and dust. He says, “Oh, this is a party alright, Rogers,” and then there’s a lot more gunfire than before.

Steve gets tackled to the ground by two agents, gets a kick in the ribs from each. He puts them down with the shield, staggers to his feet slowly, still winded, gasping for breath. Two more come out of nowhere: one goes up as the other goes down and Steve ends up with an arm around his throat and another one around his knees, trying to get him on the floor.

But then—

What Steve _thinks_ he remembers happening is this:

The one trying to go for his legs gets ripped off him with a yelp and a cry. The arm around Steve’s throat slacks a little and the body attached to it freezes. Steve looks up, groggily, and there he is, clad in regular clothes, leather long gone, hair loose and covering one side of his face.

But Steve knows that profile, intimately even, and he can see there’s a bit of plaster dust on the tip of Bucky’s nose. He doesn’t have time to have any extra thoughts about it—

“Keep getting into trouble, don’t you, Stevie,” Bucky says, snark and razors in his voice, his metal fist angry around a throat that gasps for air, much like Steve’s.

Steve huffs, feels relief push him that extra inch, and he rears his head back extra hard, hoping it lands and sticks. The agent goes down easily, and Steve regains breath harshly, his chest in a dull pain that is half the fight and half Bucky looking at him with a mix of anger, disbelief, disappointment, and a smidge of fondness tucked to the corner of his mouth.

And then the corners of Steve’s vision go pale, gray, then darker, and all Steve sees before he passes out is Bucky’s arm recalibrating as he throws someone across the room.

 _What a sight_ , Steve has time to think, and then meets the floor face first.

-

Trust goddamn Bucky Barnes to show up when Steve least expects him to.

Trust him to put Steve’s world upside down in five seconds flat, and get _Steve_ on his back in ten (or his face, really—there’s even a bruise to prove it), because he’s just that kinda guy, as it turns out.

-

Steve wakes up in a dimly lit room, with a splitting headache, a burn in his ribs and his left hand in a makeshift splint, and the worst case of cotton mouth he can remember. After his head’s done spinning and his eyelids get unstuck, he realizes the ceiling he’s staring at is familiar.

His room, then, in his and Sam’s apartment. He can’t make out what time it is, isn’t sure he has enough brainpower to care. It’s quiet, both here and outside his room, but Steve can feel the presence of someone else sitting on his stool.

“If you’re here to kill me, please wait until I’m done dyin’,” Steve slurs, his voice a gritty sound.

There’s a scoff, and then Bucky says, quietly, “I leave for seventy years and look at the shit you get into, Rogers.”

Steve keeps his eyes on the ceiling, because if he looks anywhere else he might just… he doesn’t know. Cry, probably. He does that a lot.

He gathers enough breath to utter, “You didn’t leave, you were taken.”

“Semantics,” Bucky answers, and the stool scrapes across the carpet with a dull noise and then _there_ he is, all of him covered in shadows, and then not anymore when he reaches for Steve’s lamp and flicks it on.

Bucky looks haggard, unshaved, hair pulled messily into a bun at the back of his head. There’s a hollow look in his eyes where there wasn’t once, and although the mass of him is still impressive, he looks like he hasn’t had a full meal in months. All of Steve wants to reach over and touch him, make sure he’s real, make sure he’s _okay_.

“You look like shit, Buck,” he says, because the concussion has shot his brain-to-mouth filter to hell.

Bucky’s lips twitch into a wry smile. “Believe it or not, you’re not the first to say it. Sam has a lot of opinions, apparently. He’s okay,” he adds when Steve tries to sit up and go find Sam and pat him around for injuries. “He’s in the livin’ room ordering Chinese. Says it’s your go-to post-‘I just blew up a building’ comfort food. He has a lot of opinions about that, too.”

Steve huffs a laugh, “He’s a good guy. Keeps me on my toes and deals with my bullshit on a daily basis.”

“A Nobel prize in the making, then.” Bucky shakes his head.

Steve shrugs the least painful shoulder, just looks at Bucky, and Bucky looks back, sort of reluctantly, his jaw clenched. It reminds Steve of their old staring contests, whenever they were being particularly stubborn about something—mostly it was just Steve being stubborn and Bucky being disappointed in return.

Bucky caves in first. (Like old times.) “I’m not here to stay, Steve. I’d only be putting you and Sam in danger.”

“I can handle it,” he says. “We should let Sam choose on his own.”

Bucky sighs, shaking his head. “You’re always so goddamn stubborn.”

“Learned from the best, pal,” Steve reminds him, and Bucky chuckles hollowly. “Hey, help me up a bit?” he asks, and Bucky’s there in an instant, his hand—the right one, he keeps the left one to the side—warm around Steve’s as he helps Steve prop himself up a little against the headboard. Bucky lets go with a pinched expression on his face again, and sits back on the stool, his head bowed down.

Steve looks around his messy room and winces a little bit. His bedside’s got a new stack of folders, an empty glass, some Advil that at this point is only to keep Sam off his case, and Bucky’s dog tags. Steve stares at them for a moment too long, and then Bucky catches sight of them, too.

“I found them a few weeks ago,” Steve says quietly, his eyes on Bucky now—he swallows, licks his lips, looks away and then his gaze returns. He looks… troubled, to say the least.

Bucky wets his lips again. “I haven’t seen them since the train. Not that I remember much to begin with, though.” His voice is small when he speaks again: “What should I do with’em?”

Steve aches everywhere anew. “They’re yours, Buck. You can take them, or you can leave them, whatever you wanna do, s’okay.”

He watches with bated breath as Bucky reaches over for them. He takes the chain carefully between his metal fingers and pulls them close. He inspects them on his lap, traces the length of the chain and picks carefully at the tags, his right hand tracing the inscriptions. He looks almost in awe, like he wants to both put them away and never let them out of his sight.

“I’ll figure it out,” Bucky says at last, still cradling them in his palms.

“Be right there with you,” Steve tells him gently, “if you let me.”

“Even if I don’t, though.” Bucky’s lips twitch a little; it’s the closest to a real smile Steve’s seen in years.

“End of the line, remember?” Steve asks with a smile of his own, and only jumps a little when Bucky’s metal fingers curl gently around his own.

“Yeah, Stevie,” he says, “I remember.”

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are appreciated :)


End file.
